A phase-change thermal interface material constructed from hBN-VO2 framework

To address mass heat flux and hazardous hot spots in high-power devices, the phase-change thermal interface materials (TIMs) have attracted intense interest. However, the leakage issue of the organic phase-change materials in the TIMs is still a great challenge to be addressed. Herein, a newly designed phase-change TIMs was constructed with inorganic phase-change VO 2 . In the construction, a 3D hBN–OH–VO 2 oriented thermal network was constructed via ice-templating, followed by epoxy resin (EP) vacuum infiltration. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aqueous solution and tert -butyl alcohol (TBA) solvent were comparatively investigated as inducers for dual-performance channel engineering. Characterization revealed an optimal hBN-OH:VO 2 mass ratio of 4:1. At a low total filler loading of ∼10 wt%, the PVA-assisted TIM achieved thermal conductivities of 0.29 W/m·K (25 °C) and 0.33 W/m·K (80 °C), while the TBA-assisted system exhibited thermal conductivities of 0.34 W/m·K and 0.39 W/m·K, respectively. Additionally, the thermal interface material exhibits a latent heat of up to 1.98 J/g without any component leakage. This study provides a novel strategy for designing highly reliable phase-change TIMs.